


A Sight For Sore Eyes

by Khantael



Category: Demonata Series - Darren Shan
Genre: Gen, references to violence including eye gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 07:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13002609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khantael/pseuds/Khantael
Summary: While Beranabus and his Disciples try to gather intel on the Shadow, Lord Loss performs his own reconnaissance. Unable or unwilling to get by completely undetected, he finds himself in the company of Cornelius Fleck... and can't help himself from taking advantage of the situation.





	A Sight For Sore Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Hope you have a lovely day, and a lovely forthcoming year!
> 
> The timeline runs from not long after the events of Demon Apocalypse to just before the events of Hell’s Heroes.

**_A prelude:_ **

It starts not with a presence, but an absence.

He has a certain affinity for magic; all demons do, being creatures of magic themselves, but he’s always been more in tune than most, at least for as long as he can remember (and his memory is rather long). Still, the saturation of magic itself is such a constant in the Demonata’s universe that it’s something barely noteworthy… until he feels an absence of it. He knows before he even turns around that it’s a window behind him, and that the place it leads to is largely devoid of magic. Curious.

Little interests Lord Loss, but this does. Should he indulge his curiosity? He glides confidently to the window, and sticks his face through. Beyond it, he sees a bedroom, childishly decorated, and a dark-skinned boy, about twelve years old. The child watches him emerge from the window expressionlessly, and that makes Lord Loss pause. Ordinary children would have reacted in one of two ways upon seeing a demon enter their bedroom: fight, or flight. However, in this case, there’s no reaction at all. The boy’s eyes track him, but the body stands still. It is all wrong. A baited trap? The despair and misery ingrained in the boy is obvious, and it’s well known that he feeds off such emotions. Is somebody actually trying to use the boy to entice him, and then ensnare? How… audacious.

He scans the bedroom, but nothing else looks out of place. The boy steps forward. His fist clenches. There’s the beginnings of a bizarre crackle of magic in the air, but no obvious source, although he’s sure that nobody is concealed there. Cautious now, he withdraws.

As he retreats, he watches the window, but it doesn’t disappear. Something feels… very wrong. Lord Loss does not feel fear, but he does experience surprise as the boy steps through the window. Despite the webs entangling the area and the overall décor, the boy does not react at all to his unsubtly demonic surroundings. He pauses very briefly, then his eyes fix onto Artery and he moves clumsily but purposely towards him, as if he’s transfixed. Every step the boy takes, the more credence his trap theory gets: he highly doubts a natural portal just happened to form in the presence of somebody so… unusual.

Even his familiars can feel the strange magic in the area now, polluting the air. They shift restlessly. Vein snaps beside him, growling and agitated. Artery babbles a high-pitched noise that’s more curious than frightened. Several of his more adventurous but less intelligent familiars bound forward, unable to sense the impending danger.

“Hold,” Lord Loss says softly into the impending chaos, holding up a hand, and they stop. This is his realm, and he expects to be obeyed. Observation is clearly the more intelligent choice here. 

The child reaches Artery. He crouches down. He puts his arms out. Artery eyes the exposed flesh, and goes to bite it. There’s a burst of magic, and… the world stops making sense. There’s a cry (of surprise? Of distress? Of _rage_?). There’s a baby.

The baby is Artery. He’s a flesh and blood baby now, not some demonic bastardisation of one. He howls, expressing a cacophony of emotions or maybe none at all, as he tries to wriggle free of arms that are suddenly around him as tight as a vice. Artery opens his mouth to bite again, but stops himself as if confused.

Through all of this, the window hovers behind the boy, ominous in its continued, looming presence. It emits an eerie blue glow.

The boy straightens, Artery firmly secured in his hands. He turns and looks at Lord Loss. His face still betrays no emotion, but he stares for so long that it feels like a challenge. ( _Who_ is challenging him, and sending a mere child to be their proxy?)

“Yes?” Lord Loss asks. He doesn’t expect an answer, and he doesn’t receive one. The boy seems to operating under some sort of waking dream; there’s no genuine awareness to what he’s doing. That or he’s some sort of sociopath.

Then the boy turns and leaves. The window winks out of existence immediately after, as if it had been waiting for some sort of cue.

There’s a moment of silence. Then Vein whimpers.

This won’t do at all, Lord Loss thinks. Artery isn’t anything particularly special, but he can’t go around letting people think they can get away with stealing away _his_ familiars. It’s the principle of the matter. But Lord Loss knows how to bide his time, to be careful, to set out his own snares to find the mastermind of this charade. He is confident that the situation can be rectified, and soon.

It never occurs to him that there's no mastermind at all, that the boy is acting of his own volition. When he discovers that truth, his interest is piqued, and he resolves to take a renewed interest in the boy: Cornelius Fleck.

* * *

**A Sight For Sore Eyes**

The universe of the Demonata. This is a relatively safe space – or as safe as you can get in this universe – with no demons roaming around right now. The demons here actually form parts of the environment itself; they camouflage themselves, as trees and pieces of rock. Beranabus is trying to put Grubbs through his paces on stationary demons first, or that’s the excuse he’s using. Apparently he wants to teach him to think like a magician, not a mage. Still, it’s obvious it’s more my fault that we’re here than theirs.

They’re well out of my line of sight, but I can still track them. That’s part of why I’m here, sitting with my eyes closed. It’s helpful to meditate sometimes, especially for me. I’ve been a bit unbalanced since the injury to my eyes. Sure, I’ve been able to recreate them faithfully, a bit of added luminescence aside. I can still see the lights that I’ve always seen and have learned how to manipulate, but that’s not all. There’s a second set of lights I can see now, too, and they don’t follow the rules as they should. I can also track people better, even with my eyes closed – is that a feature of the new lights too? We’re testing my capabilities as much as Grubbs’.

It sounds great, but it’s distracting too. In our last fight, I was badly injured. It wasn’t anything that we can’t fix: one of the many advantages of being able to use magic is the ability to use it for healing, but Beranabus was furious. We weren’t even fighting a particularly difficult demon. I was mad, too, that he couldn’t appreciate why I was so distracted. So here I sit: meditating in my own words, or sulking in Grubbs’. (He’s one to talk!)

Suddenly, I feel… something. It’s not the formation of a window, but it feels broadly similar, and I know automatically that they’re foe, not friend. My instinct hasn’t ever been wrong on that. They’re powerful, too, and immediately a nasty thought occurs to me: powerful enough that it seems obvious to me that they're a demon master, a demon crossing but not through a window… there aren’t many candidates. Surely it can’t be…?

I open my eyes.

From behind my back, a voice asks, “All alone, Cornelius?”

Sometimes it would be nice to be wrong. Still, he hasn’t attacked yet, and I’m no fool. It’s not a good idea to attack a demon master in a place of magic, even if we aren’t in his realm specifically. I’ve walked away from him before, but he attacked us in the cave. Why isn’t he now?

I get up and turn around.

The creature has the basic shape of a man, but a man it definitely isn’t. Bones jut out from the lumpy skin of his arms. He looks like a child’s version of a mosaic: small pieces crammed together awkwardly, cracks visible between them. Blood oozes from those cracks of his skin. To the left of his chest, a hole looms. No heart. Just snakes, wriggling and hissing. No feet. Extra appendages below his arms. Unusually, he seems to be alone.

“Not quite,” I tell Lord Loss.

“No,” he agrees, “I imagine that Beranabus keeps someone of your talents close. Although, perhaps no more…” He appraises me closely. “A fine job with the eyes. I see Spine hasn’t left any lasting damage.”

I don’t feel like exchanging pleasantries with him. “What do you mean, perhaps no more?” I ask. Lord Loss’ motives used to be fairly predictable, given his propensity for basking in misery, even if his actual actions weren’t so predictable. But now we know that Lord Loss has sided with the Shadow, so it seems his priorities have changed.

“Beranabus has new toys to play with, does he not?” His red eyes bore into me mercilessly. “Little Bec, his dear, sweet friend from long before you, whose power is significant. Grubitsch, a genuine magician of the likes he hasn’t seen in many years.” (There’s venom in his voice at the mention of Grubbs, and I wonder not for the first time exactly what Grubbs had done to offend Lord Loss so badly. It can’t just be that he’s a Grady, since he was amiable enough to Dervish all those years ago… although he hadn’t been too fond of Dervish in the cave either.) “There was a time that Beranabus would not have let you out of his sight, but where is he now? Could he get to you in the event of an accident?”

I shift into defensive posture at the perceived threat.

Lord Loss laughs, amused. “Do you genuinely believe you can fight me? _Your_ magic is unremarkable. If I had wished to attack you, I would have done so already, while your back was turned.”

He’s telling the truth. Lord Loss prides himself on his honesty, twisted though it is sometimes, and I know that he doesn’t really want to fight. The defensiveness isn’t actually in response to the suggestion that he might attack me, but his words are prodding at a sore point that I was trying to ignore unsuccessfully.

“Poor Cornelius,” he muses, “So much weaker than the others, and injured grievously besides. Your own abilities crippled. When Spine injured your eyes, did they fear for your wellbeing? Or whether or not you’d still have a use?” My fingers have closed into fists in my hands without my noticing it, and I scowl. I’m aware enough to realise that he’s trying to goad me, that that part of his personality apparently hasn’t changed, but that doesn’t make it easier to control myself.

The truth is it does bother me a bit. Of course it does. For years I’ve slaved away with Beranabus. That was my choice, and I don’t regret it – too much time had passed, and in returning I’d ripped apart all of my parent’s old wounds. Staying there would have ruined all of us, so I’d left again. I shackled myself to Beranabus by revealing myself as a piece of the Kah-Gash, I endured his poor company and in turn I helped him in his efforts to save the universe and he taught me how to improve my fighting capabilities. I have plenty of magic, but I’m not a natural fighter, and my powers aren’t like Beranabus’. It’s not something he can teach.

I saw how excited he was when he met Grubbs, saw what was happening. A genuine magician that he could teach, somebody so powerful that he could hide his magic not just from the world, but even from himself. That he could use it to fight something that should have been an inevitability. Even before he knew Grubbs was part of the Kah-Gash, he saw the potential and was willing to take him in, train him to fight and overall treat him much better than he ever had me.

Grubbs called me jealous once, and I had been. I thought I’d got over it, but evidently not. And that wasn’t even going into the whole Bec situation, with her spirit surviving the impossible and taking over a body. She almost single-handedly defeated Lord Loss’ familiars in that cave, and had been the reason for his retreat. Beranabus loved her. How could I compete with that?

But even if I’d have wanted to, I couldn’t have turned my back, or returned home. Not only had I promised myself that I wouldn’t and had stepped away from that life, but these eyes require magic to function. Out of the Demonata universe, they will eventually deteriorate and become useless. Not only is my family unable to be my home anymore, but the entire human world. I’d sacrificed and would sacrifice more, but it would be worth it in the end. And Beranabus, for all his faults, is working to the same goal as me, and is doing what he has to do to give us the best odds. If that means spending more time with Grubbs to ensure he doesn’t freeze up and die a horrible death, then so be it. I know where I'm needed. How _dare_ Lord Loss question that?

“I get by,” I snap.

“You didn’t answer the question,” he notes.

“It was a stupid question.”

“Your silence is answer enough,” he says smugly, and unfortunately I think he’s probably hit the nail on the head. I’m trying to avoid saying too much to him as I don’t know why he’s here, but I can only assume he’s digging for information of some kind. If he and Grubbs don’t see each other at all in his time here, at least we’ll probably all survive the encounter. I can handle this.

I pull myself together. Lord Loss seems to be unaware that I have new abilities ever since creating the artificial eyes, and I fully intend for it to remain that way, no matter how distracting they are.

(“ _Come_ ,” the new lights whisper seductively. They fill in the silences around me, over and over, and are the reason I was injured. The first time I heard them was in combat. There’s an urgency in those words, and hearing someone suddenly talking from behind me when nobody should have been there had sent me spinning around. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten for that split second what I was actually doing, and by that point I’d exposed my back to a rather nasty demon. I’m learning to ignore them or I simply won’t be able to function. This conversation is a start.)

Sensing that he is no longer getting to me, he tries a different tactic. “You did not bear witness to the death of Artery, since you were… indisposed at the time. I’m sure you’re thankful for that.” His tone oozes sadness. He almost sounds sincere, but I think that’s just another cruelty.

“I don’t care about Artery!” The retort comes immediately, and I close my eyes. So much for trying to show that he’s not getting to me.

“No?” His small mouth curves into a smile. “I’m sure that you don’t,” he says in the patronising, placating way that a teacher would talk to a small child.

Determined to take control of the conversation, I ask, “Why are you here?” My arms are folded in front of me defensively. “You’re working for the Shadow. Are you-“

“That’s rather rude, Cornelius. I haven’t asked you why you’re here, or what Beranabus is planning. Do you wish to break this momentary truce?”

Not really. Gathering information on the shadow is a priority, but it is most effective on small, weak demons who are easily bullied. We don’t have any incentive to make Lord Loss talk.

At the same time, we both seem to realise that we’ve got about as much information as we’re going to out of this conversation. He smiles. His sharp, jutting out teeth glimmer and look as threatening as his displeasure would. “I didn’t think so.” His attention briefly flits off into the distance. Grubbs and Beranabus are returning, and it seems that he knows it too. “This is not the time.”

As quickly as he had arrived, he vanishes. Definitely not a window. How does he do it? Even Beranabus doesn’t know.

I know already that I’m not going to mention this encounter. Perhaps I would if it was only Beranabus and I still, but there’s Grubbs to consider. He has a blind rage when it comes to Lord Loss, and we can’t afford to constantly be acting on his grudges, especially when he’s finally at a place where he’s showing some will to fight instead of the pathetic cowardice of our last trek to the Demonata universe, which now seems so long ago. His hostilities are unsurprising.

It occurs to me that there’s very little else that Lord Loss can do to me. My eyes have already been damaged. My family is out of touch. I never had a brother, but even the genuine article of him is dead.

It doesn’t occur to me that he can still take from the others, or that’d he’d have the motive to take from any of us, besides Grubbs. When I realise, far too late, I curse myself for a fool.

* * *

There are things I can remember so strongly that it’s like they’ve been burned into my brain.

A sharp prickle in my eye, a bulging senation, a wet pop and tear tracks formed of blood and – _torture_. That one moment lasts an eternity in my memory, stretching into a remembrance of pain – wordless, contorting, blinding ( _blinding!_ ), screaming agony. A terrifying blackness that still makes me sweat in areas of darkness. An uncomfortable itch that starts at my eyes and creeps to my brain with steady determination. Little demons full of hate. (Munch, munch.)

I remember a brother that I never really had. Clutching him to my chest as I fall out of a window, watching mum cradle a baby happily to her chest (it may be a fabrication, an unreality, but my mind still remembers those memories it created). I don’t remember a life without that brother; my own childhood. I don't remember being an only child.

In my mind’s eye, I see a photograph. Two of the faces look blurred and grainy, but the third is my face. Or would be my face were it not scribbled out thickly in black marker pen, a final rejection. I might not remember my parent’s faces, but I remember their destruction of mine.

I remember nearly burning to a crisp, but hands dragging at me, magic that isn’t mine forcing life into my limbs. A face above me with dirty, straggly hair, an expression of great concentration and a declaration that we’d be enemies.

Staring up at Lord Loss’s face, hovering like a God above us, from The Board, a realisation slowly dawning on me with creeping dread. “I’m the thief!”

Concluding I’m part of the Kah-Gash, resigning myself to the lonely life of fighting demons. Signing my soul over to Beranabus. Rewinding a future of grief, heartbreak and ruin.

I remember these important things, but sometimes I can’t remember my full name, or where I lived. Or _when_. Sometimes I can’t remember what I’ve just said or done. Memories, shook loose. Bec is the memory of the Kah-Gash; does her overabundance of it leave me and Grubbs without? Or is it something altogether more sinister…? (Munch, munch.)

Mostly, I remember a friend. We’re resigned to defeat. Bec is gone. I’m leaving, fulfilling a promise, sacrificing my mortality for the good of the many. I wonder whether Beranabus would approve.

Grubbs doesn’t. He slashes my eyes with razor sharp claws. It was traumatic enough the first time when I wasn’t being defaced by a friend. I snarl, wordless, sounding feral as a werewolf myself. A howl of rage, black hatred. And burnt into my eyeless vision is my friend’s face, determined and focused and unapologetic as he _rips my eyes out_. _Again_.

There are things I remember, and there’re things I’ll never forget.

Grubbs’ face, I’ll never forget.

* * *

Alone, lying on a bed staring up at a ceiling that I cannot see. Angry and without a purpose. The world has been swallowed by a black void. Everything is gone. I wasn’t blind long enough, the last time, to learn how to navigate fully without my vision. If we get attacked now, I’m toast unless Grubbs or the rest of our makeshift group feels magnanimous enough to help me out. Grubbs being magnanimous, huh. More like merciless.

There isn’t enough magic in the air for me to recreate my eyes here, even if I’m familiar with the process now. I could draw on it if a window opened, but a window would bring demons, and I can’t open up my own anymore. That was the idea, after all. I’m completely useless now. I’m just a conduit for Grubbs and his stupid, reckless plan.

“So you too have fallen prey to the utter, callous disregard of a Grady,” a voice states dispassionately. I don’t need eyes to recognise the sorrowful tone. Immediately, I can feel the magic of his demonic form; the only thing my senses have managed to pinpoint in the room. I pull myself up, somehow able to orient myself now that I have an object I can find. “My condolences.”

“How do you know that?” I ask. He shouldn’t know anything about what has happened after that catastrophic battle, where the only thing we’d achieved was losing Bec to Lord Loss, and others to death. Beranabus’ death beforehand, which Lord Loss had been so heavily involved in, still feels very raw to me, and I am tiring of his little visits that don’t seem to have a purpose beyond confusing me.

Amusement laces his voice. “Is it not obvious?”

Has he been spying on us? It would make sense: I knew he’d visited us at least once before; perhaps he’d decided to let me see him during that occasion. Who knew how many other occasions we may have missed? He could’ve paid visits to the others too. Not Grubbs – they hated each other too much not to have fought – but maybe Bec…

“What have you done with Bec? Is she-“

“How needlessly melodramatic. There would be no purpose in killing her.”

There’s no purpose in killing anything with Death roaming around. I think of Bec entangled tightly in Lord Loss’ arms amidst the chaos of demons attacking, looking scared but determined. If she’s alive, only one person will have her.

“There’s no purpose in keeping her either!” I retort, but I know it’s not true. He may be splitting us up for the same reason as Beranabus did: our combined power is the only real threat to the shadow that is Death.

“Our reunion was so rudely interrupted. I enjoy reacquainting myself with old friends. After all, here _we_ are, Cornelius. As for young Bec… Beranabus was not the only one to have experienced the pleasure of her company prior to this century.”

It occurs to me that if Beranabus was still alive, Lord Loss would never have been able to get his hands on Bec. I wonder if this is spite aimed beyond the grave at the man who had been a thorn in the side of the Demonata for so many centuries.

We’ve all been ruined in one way or another. Eyeless me, my abilities crippled for the time being. Bec, losing her one link to the past, eventually being stolen herself. Grubbs’ family murdered, his uncle dying, he himself becoming something relentless and not quite human. Between us we’re still the most powerful force, yet our hearts pull in different directions.

“Here you are, alone again. Are you defeated?” Lord Loss asks solemnly.

“No!” I snap back immediately, fire in my belly.

“Each day, your numbers dwindle. Soon, your only ally will be the one who did _that_ to you-“ (I don’t need to be able to see to know that he’s referring to my eyes). “So vicious, even to his own companions. A bully to the end.”

For some reason, I find that word particularly evocative. _Bully_.

I’m furious with Grubbs and his self-centred antics, but I think that’s going a bit far. “He’s not a bully.” Grubbs has been single-minded and thoughtless and uncaring of whom he hurts if it achieves his desired result. Right now I hate him for it, but we ultimately have the same goal: we are a single team, however much that stings.

“No? His brother thought so.”

That’s a targeted insult, but not one targeted at me. Having only very briefly encountered Grubbs’ brother at the cave, I don’t know what their relationship was like, and what his brother thought means little to me. Besides, my relationship with my ‘brother’ had been so complicated that I could hardly criticise anybody else’s.

“It doesn’t matter what his brother thought,” I snap, knowing it’s futile to argue the point. “Nobody’s defeated. We’re not going to let it end like this!”

That’s one thing we can agree on, Bec, Grubbs and I. I want to get my vision back and help the Old Creatures with their plan. Grubbs wants to tackle Death head on. And Bec… I know she wants to fight for this world too. She committed herself to it when she brought herself back from death, knowing far more about the impending danger than we did.

I can’t place the emotion in his voice, but it’s not fear, or anger or happiness. “Oh? And how do you plan to do that?”

Well, there’s only one possible response to that.

“Just watch us!”

**Author's Note:**

> I do actually really like Grubbs! But Lord Loss is always going to be scathing about him, and Kernel’s just been caught at a really bad time…
> 
> Re: the memory section having some factual inaccuracies (the photo, only child reference etc)- that's intentional to try and illustrate that lack of remembrance of the details (it's rather difficult to tackle in 1st person) and the way we tend to unconsciously fill in those gaps. I thought it would be interesting to explore given Beranabus' comments on them both not quite remembering Kernel's actual name, not to mention the gleeful description in the books of maggots chomping on Kernel's brain.


End file.
